Free Range Kids
What can decongest our roads, reduce CO2 emissions, and help improve levels of every day physical activity? Free range kids.
Cast your mind back to your childhood. What memories make you smile? Riding your bike, exploring new and unfamiliar places? Probably, because these are the things that today's adults enjoyed as children, with 70% experiencing most of their adventures outdoor. Nowadays only 29% of children are experiencing adventures outdoors, often closely supervised by adults.
In the early 1970's 80% of seven and eight year olds travelled to school without an adult. By 2009, only 11% of seven to ten years olds did the same, with 42% of primary school children now being driven to school.They've put out this mad report (PDF): Free Range Kids - Creating tomorrow’s low-carbon, active travellers.
Note Sustrans' lefty leaning use of the words "free-range" - typical of the sort of dangerous knit-your-own-beans sandal-wearing hippy agenda we've come to expect from this anti-car, anti-growth, anti-Aberdeen organisation.
Of course, what Sustrans fail to acknowledge is that most people aspire to the convenience of personal motor transport, pay dearly for the privilege, provide much employment, contribute greatly in taxes, and then people like silly Sustrans expect them to ‘leave the car at home’, while their money is spent creating cycle lanes and the like for freeloading cyclists. We also worry that the "free-range kids" agenda exposes children to peedofiles. It's bound to.
In this context, the precipitous drop in children walking to school is a veritable triumph. And what's more, Aberdeen leads the way.
But, unfortunately, backward places like the City of Westminster are busy implementing the "Free-range kids" agenda with sineage like this:
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| Watch out for the impoverished children of the City of Westminster. Shame... |
To us, that sign just says: "Watch out! Poor area where few people can afford an nice car in which to drive their children to school, so be careful they don't scratch your lovely car out of sheer spiteful envy at your success."
Now, don't get us wrong, we're not monsters! We appreciate that there might well be perfectly reasonable explanations why parents sometimes might not be able to drive their kids to school in the proper manner (though we can't think of any just now). And when these kids have to walk, because we care so much about their safety, we prefer to see them behind suitable pedestrian barriers and wearing hi-vis jackets. That way our no-claims bonuses are safe.
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